Joseph Finnegan

Joseph Finnegan (17 November 1814-29 October 1885) was a Brigadier General of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War.

Biography
Finnegan was born in in County Monaghan in Ireland, but in the 1830s he immigrated to Florida and established a sawmill at Jacksonville. However, he became a partner of David Levy Yulee and aided in the construction of the Florida Railroad. He became the brother-in-law of Robert R. Reid, the Governor of Florida, in the presidency of Martin Van Buren, and was thus connected to the government; he also bought five miles of shoreline along Lake Monroe for $40 at a courthouse auction in 1849. At the secession convention of Florida he represented Nassau County, and he became a Brigadier-General of the Confederate States' nascent Confederate States Army at the start of the American Civil War. In April 1862 he was given Middle and East Florida, but Florida only became a battleground in February 1864, when P.G.T. Beauregard sent reinforcements to Finnegan to defend Florida, a source of vital "Florida Beef", from the Union army encamped at Jacksonville. On 20 February 1864, in the Battle of Olustee, Finnegan and the Confederate Army defeated the Union army but failed to win a decisive victory because Finnegan contented himself with capturing the Union army's supplies. He was replaced by James Patton Anderson and he led the Florida Brigade of the Army of Northern Virginia until the end of the American Civil War.

After the war his life was hammered upon. His estate was made into a school for black children, and he had to sell most of his land to hire attorneys to reclaim his estate. In 1871 his son Rutledge died and Finnegan had to move to Savannah, Georgia, where he would be contented with a large Irish population. He died of severe cold.